In my experience, teaching early high school English is difficult for three main reasons. Students face extensive workloads, leading to rushed or ignored work. Two, English as a discipline is deeply interconnected, meaning that to comprehensively understand a text, you would need to understand the context of its inception, its influences and its criticisms. As Kamala Harris says, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”. The third and most recent wound is the spread of short-form algorithmically dispensed content, a Hydra with its serpentine heads christened Instagram / Snapchat Reels, TikToks, and Youtube Shorts. Whatever app you delete, two more will take its place. While other difficulties with learning have remained consistent across centuries, the mentioned short-form content has been around for a little under 20 years. Social media has become a ubiquitous medium for younger generations in Australia to communicate, and its popularity correlates with a broader decline in in-person socialisation and readership. In their 2025 Transparency Report, the national eSafety Commissioner found that “almost all (95 per cent) 13-15 year-olds surveyed had used social media between January and September 2024”, with Snapchat, Tiktok and Instagram used by 63 per cent, 62 per cent, and 56
Read More